It’s that time of year. Cook-outs. Beach vacations. Figuring out if you hate your job enough to quit and go get an MFA. Maybe you’re researching programs. Maybe you’re trying to figure out how you’ll pay for it and your groceries at the same time.
But first, it’s really important to figure out if you really should be in an MFA program in the first place. Because it’s two to three years of your life and a lot of money, whether in terms of the cash you’ll be shelling out to your school or in terms of the income you may earn if you stay at that job of yours.
There are many, many blogs and articles on the interwebs about whether MFAs are even worthwhile. Do a search. Read those. This is geared toward those who have already sort of maybe decided that they want one, despite the difficulty of getting accepted, despite the naysayers, despite the limited chances of publishing success.
I guess you could say that in the argument of MFA or NYC, I’ve already made my decision. Maybe you have, too. But before you shell out hundreds of dollars on application fees and official transcripts, consider the following five good reasons to pursue an MFA in creative writing. (Please note that most of what follows applies to full residency programs. I don’t know much about low residency programs.)
1. You want to improve your writing and increase your knowledge of the craft.
This. This is the number one reason to get an MFA because it’s one of the few guarantees of completing a program. Publications cannot be guaranteed. Post-graduation jobs cannot be guaranteed. But you will get better at writing.
Sure, a lot of the anti-MFA arguments say that MFA programs spit out a bunch writers writing the same thing and that workshops force out the new or weird or experimental. There’s some truth to that argument. Many times, my classmates and I have said something along the lines of, “If I read that in a published story, I’d be fine with it. But that won’t fly in workshop.”
The other side of that coin is that workshops force you to write. There is a deadline that you cannot escape. And the only way you get better at writing is by doing it. A lot of it. Which an MFA program will get you to do. You will also read a lot of amazing books, stories, poems, and essays—by the pros and by your classmates. You will be inspired (and enraged by jealousy) by the great stuff you will read. You will learn great tips for approaching a variety of craft issues. You will figure out what’s important to you, what you want your own writing to achieve, and where you might try to fit (or misfit) into the larger lit scene. You’ll learn vocabulary that will allow you to articulate all these thoughts regarding craft and literature in a thoughtful, insightful way.
I decided to get an MFA because I wanted to write. More specifically, I wanted to write something in the same vein of what I liked to read—Faulkner, O’Connor, Crews. And to do that, I knew I needed help. I needed guidance. I needed the expertise of faculty who could point me in the right direction. I needed talented classmates to read my work and give me honest feedback. I needed those things because I knew they would make me a better writer, because I knew I had the talent to be a writer but still had a long way to go in terms of shaping that talent. I knew I was good, but that I needed to get better. If you can make an honest assessment of your own talent (or lack thereof), an MFA program can make you a better writer.
2. You want to enter a community of writers and build your own support system of like-minded artists.
Community is important no matter what you do, whether it’s a career or a hobby. You want to be able to discuss what’s important to you with others for whom the same stuff is important. Sure, there are ways to infiltrate your city’s local lit scene. The great thing about an MFA program is that it immediately provides you with your community. You don’t even have to work at it. Over the course of a semester or so, you will figure out who, in your opinion, the best writers in your program are, who you enjoy hanging out with and talking shop with, who you trust with your work, who you can give blunt feedback to without them getting their panties all in a wad, whose writing goals are similar to yours. They will become your community within your larger MFA community. They will also become some of your best friends.
When I first began to consider taking my writing seriously, I researched writers’ groups in my area. They seemed to be geared toward retirees and stay-at-home moms who wanted to write detective novels and romance stories. Those are worthy literary pursuits. But that wasn’t me. I wanted to write 21st-century Southern Gothic. I wanted to write literary fiction. I wasn’t interested in “making it big” with a genre bestseller or crafting an ongoing series or writing YA. Again, all worthy pursuits, but not my goal. The other people who liked to read what I liked to read? Who wanted to write what I wanted to write? They were in MFA programs.
Now I have a core group of six or seven amazing writers who I also love dearly as friends. Now that we’ve graduated, we’re spreading out geographically, but they will always be my go-to people when I need a reader, when I need feedback, when I need to bitch about rejections. Additionally, I have the larger, wider community of all the writers in my program, current and alumni, the faculty, the artists who have visited, etc. In short, I’ve got a professional network.
3. You want to gain knowledge of the publishing industry.
When I finished my English degree, I had a chapbook-length collection of poetry (my senior thesis), but no idea what to do with it. I knew literary magazines and journals were a thing that existed, but I knew nothing about them. How do I get my poems published? How do I know which lit mags to submit to? How do I even go about submitting them? How long do I have to submit until I get an acceptance?
In my MFA program, I was lucky enough to get an assistantship with The Florida Review. Even if I hadn’t gotten the assistantship, I could have registered for an internship for course credit. I learned how lit mags work, from slush piles to solicited submissions to proofreading to communicating with contributors to how to craft a good cover letter or author biography. I learned the do’s and don’ts of submitting. And I learned the names and aesthetics of many, many other lit mags out there.
The most important thing I learned was that getting a piece of work accepted is often a matter of the editor’s personal preference. This has made my own process of submitting and getting rejected much easier to handle. I don’t sweat rejections all that much. Sure, sometimes I’m bummed, but often I just chalk it up to that particular editor not liking that particular piece. And I’ve had poems rejected by some lit mags only to be picked up by better, more prestigious ones.
The opportunity to learn these things, which will not only help as you submit your own work but also as a CV/resume builder, is available to you as an MFA student. Because almost every program has a lit mag attached to it.
4. You want to get a university teaching job.
As I said before, post-graduation jobs are not guaranteed. However, the MFA is considered the terminal degree in the academic field of creative writing. Technically, with an MFA and a published book (even if it’s with a relatively unknown small press), you qualify for a tenure-track professor position in a university creative writing program. That’s good to know, right?
Well, there are some caveats.
The competition for those jobs is fierce. More people are getting PhDs in creative writing, which automatically qualifies them for those jobs without a book-length publication. Colleges and universities have been slashing budgets, especially in the humanities, for the better part of a decade now, which means fewer open positions. And it’s not like there are all that many creative writing programs to hire you to begin with. (And your MFA will not qualify you for employment in an English program that focuses exclusively on literary criticism and/or rhetoric and writing studies.)
But. You are still qualified for a creative writing professorship. Just because it’s hard to get doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
And in the meantime, you will be qualified to teach freshman English and undergraduate creative writing courses as an adjunct or instructor. You can teach at a technical or two-year college. You can teach English at a private high school. In other words, you can teach, and with any luck, you publish that book and eventually get hired as an assistant professor. It’s a good gig, right? Flexible schedule. Summers off to write or go to retreats and conferences. And the pay’s pretty darn good once you finally get tenure.
5. You need to force yourself to complete a major writing project.
The best way to come into an MFA program is with an idea for a major writing project already sort of formed (or, if you’re lucky, already fully formed) inside that ol’ knoggin of yours. So if you’ve got a great idea for a novel or memoir or collection of poems, why haven’t you written it yet? For the same reasons we all struggle with completing our writing projects. Time. Day jobs. Friends and romantic relationships. Families and parents and children. Life just gets in the way. Sometimes, at least for me, it’s hard to put all that aside and get motivated. It’s hard for me to accomplish anything without a deadline.
Entering an MFA program will not solve the problem of life. Sure, if you become a full-time student, your day job will likely go away, so at least that’s something. But deadlines in workshop, deadlines with your thesis director, deadlines for graduating some time this decade—these will all force you to write. And in order to get it done, you will shift your priorities. Sure, family, relationships, and hobbies will all still be important, but you will learn how to say “no,” or at least “not now,” so you can focus on your writing. That’s a habit you will take with you after you graduate, which is good because you’ll have a thesis-length work to revise and prepare for publication.
I now have a complete draft of my novel. It’s a mess, but it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And thanks to feedback from my committee and my community, I know how to revise it. I am beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
I can state unequivocally that if I had not gone into an MFA program, I would not be this far along.
I am terrible at forcing myself to sit down and write. Those deadlines imposed on me are the only reason this novel exists. Without them, I’d likely have a few scenes, maybe pages of notes, but no book. And to work on it now that I’m out? It’s a daily struggle. It’s hard for me to sit and write when I know that laundry needs to be done or the kitchen looks like a bomb hit it or I have one night off this week from the restaurant that I’d like to spend with my husband or my friends. But thanks to my MFA, I have learned strategies for blocking all that out, even if only for an hour or two. I’ve learned to budget my time and prioritize my day. Am I always successful? Nope. But I’m much better than I used to be. My MFA forced me to write that novel draft, and now I’m too far along in the process to let it languish in my closet for eternity.
There may be other, perfectly good, reasons to get an MFA. These five are mine. If you found yourself nodding along, agreeing or thinking, That’s what I want to do, then an MFA might make sense for you. Start researching programs. Start getting your portfolio together. Go forth into the academy!
If you found that none of this applied to you, then maybe it doesn’t make sense to get an MFA. And that’s okay, too. An MFA is not an automatic ticket to writing talent.
If you’re still unsure, stay tuned. My next blog post will give all the reasons you shouldn’t get an MFA.